Ace on the King
by Kirachu
Summary: Subaru and Arashi play cards and talk.


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Ace on the King

by Kira **(kira@shikigami.net****)**

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Title: Ace on the King

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Rating: PG

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Spoilers: None, takes place between X12-16 or so.

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Pairings: Possible SubaruxKamui, SeishirouxSubaru, and SorataxArashi.

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Genre: Interaction between two characters. O.o;;

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Notes: Written for a game fic challenge issued on Clampesque.

Rain, Subaru had decided, was exceedingly boring as it was depressing. 

Seated on the open porch of the Imonoyama mansion, directly overlooking the campus grounds, he sat in a lounge chair, both legs tucked up beneath him and a cigarette in hand. The days were passing slowly, and with the steady rain that had began two days ago and continued sporadically since then, they seemed far longer than usual. Perhaps because he was bored, he thought offhandedly. Perhaps because he would have very much liked to be any place but here. But far be it possible for him to deny Kamui anything, and when the boy had asked him to come stay with them, at least for a brief while, he had been hard pressed to say no. 

Nor, he noted, as the screen door to the porch opened and someone stepped outside, did he seem to have the privacy he longed for here. He glanced over, briefly, saw that it was Arashi, and thought nothing of it. He was estranged with the other Dragons of Heaven as it was, but certainly none of them as much as he was with the priestess of Ise. She was closed off, reserved, silent and stoic, much the same as he was. There had been few opportunities for them to speak, though he doubted, had there been, either one of them would have taken the presented chance. There was little for them to discuss. 

She noticed him, but seemed unconcerned with his presence, and so long as she did not seem to care, nor did he. He continued to smoke his cigarette, giving her little more consideration, and gaze returning to the falling rain. He had nearly drained it down to its filter before she spoke. 

"Depressing, isn't it." 

She said it in a way that made it seem more a statement than a question, one that did not require him to respond, nor seemed to even be directed at him. Subaru had to turn his head slightly to fully regard her -- she was facing to his blind side. Her arms were folded across her middle, dark eyes turned away from him, and watching the rain. Subaru frowned down at his cigarette and flicked away its few remnants. 

"Yes," he agreed, simply. 

Arashi said nothing, and silence descended between them once again. Neither seemed willing to break it this time, but it was not an awkward silence. It was almost companionable, Subaru thought, something that struck him as vaguely amusing. 

His hand went into the back pocket of the black jeans he wore, searching for his cigarettes, and he frowned slightly as his fingers brushed over something else. He grasped it and drew it from his pocket, eyebrows arching slightly when he brought it into view and saw it was a deck of cards. It took him a moment, but he remembered tucking them away there earlier that morning, after he had been sitting with Kamui in the boy's room and had been convinced to play a game of Go Fish. He had gathered them up and put them into the jeans pocket when Sorata had come in unexpectedly to nettle Kamui about something. 

"Sit," he said, abruptly, indicating with a hand to the chair opposite of him, on the other side of the glass in-table between the two chairs. Arashi looked at him, puzzled, and upon seeing that he was fully expecting her to, she slowly sat down, eyes radiating her suspicion. Subaru only smiled, faintly, in a disarming sort of way, and he began to shuffle through the cards. 

"What are you doing?" she asked finally, watching as he set out four cards in a single line, then divided what remained of the deck and handed her one half while keeping the other. 

"Dealing," he answered, in a way that made it seem that he thought it was a stupid question to ask. 

Arashi frowned down at the line of cards, then at those in her hand. "What is this game?" 

Subaru shuffled through his cards, absently. 

"It's simple," he said. He pressed his index finger to the first card, the King of Spades. "We build up on these, either going backwards or forwards." He flipped over the first card of his half of the deck, and seeing that it was an Ace, played it on the King. "Or, likewise, if I had a Queen, I could have played that card. Understand?" 

He looked up and saw that Arashi was listening and watching his demonstration carefully, though the same expression remained, unchanging. 

"We both keeping going at the same time," Subaru said, "and the game ends when one person is completely out of cards." 

"And if neither of us can play anything?" Arashi asked. 

"Then we each take a card from our decks and place them here and here." He pointed again, indicating to the opposite ends of the line. 

Arashi nodded, and seeing that she was prepared, Subaru flipped over the second card of his deck and, seeing that it was a four, played it on the three beside the King of Spades. The Ise priestess caught on quickly, and began turning out cards as quickly as he did, oftentimes preventing him from laying his down by placing them before he could. 

"Where did you learn this?" she asked, laying a Queen on a King just as Subaru was about to place an Ace. 

"From a friend," Subaru answered. He in return prevented Arashi from placing down a six on a seven by playing an eight. "Whenever he had a spare time around his office." 

"A friend?" Arashi repeated. Subaru glanced at her, briefly, then returned his eyes to the game at hand. 

"I'm sure you can imagine who." 

Arashi said nothing, only frowned at her deck, seeing that she could play nothing. Subaru played out two cards, and yet still she could not lay down hers. After frowning a moment at the line of cards, Subaru flipped over the first of his desk and laid it down on the right end of the deck, as Arashi took the first from hers and placed it on the left end. The game resumed. 

"You should come here more often," Arashi murmured. 

Subaru placed an Ace on a two. "Should I." 

"Kamui needs you here." 

"Does he." 

She looked up at him, eyes narrowed, and Subaru caught the gaze. She continued to stare at him, eyes hard and unforgiving, and after a long moment of neither of them making a move, Subaru broke the stare and looked back down at the card in his hand. 

"Should you educate me on needing someone? It seems hypocritical." 

Arashi frowned at him, not understanding. 

"You have someone who needs you as well," Subaru said, in an almost offhanded manner. He ran his eyes over the line of cards, saw an opportunity to put down the Jack in his hand, and seized it. "Yet you are rarely there for him." 

"You can't mean Sorata." Arashi placed a five over a six. 

Subaru raised an eyebrow. "There is no one else I could have meant, is there?" 

Both were reaching the end of their decks, and it seemed that Arashi would be emptying her hands long before he would. Still, Subaru continued to play out his in an almost methodical way, not thinking much of what he was doing but always making the right moves. 

"He needs you, and yet you deny to let him have you." 

"And that makes me hypocritical." 

Subaru was playing out of all of his cards with a speed Arashi could not compare to. 

"It makes you a hypocrite when you tell me that Kamui needs me, and that I should be there for him, when you cannot or refuse to be there for Sorata, when he needs you much the same way." 

She had three cards in her hands, none that could be played. Subaru had one, but he held it in his hand, and focused on Arashi and Arashi only. 

"From what I know of Sorata," he said slowly, in patient tones, "is that of all of us, he is the most willing and prepared to die." More so than even he was, who had simply lost the will to live, but had yet to accept inevitable death. "What time he has to live he wants to spend with you, and you deny him that." 

She stared back at him, gaze even, unmoving. "And is it not hypocritical of you to say such a thing, when it may well be the same for Kamui?" 

"The difference between my situation and yours is that unlike you, I cannot give Kamui what he wants. I gave my life to someone else too long ago to be able to give it to Kamui now. But you can do that for Sorata." 

Subaru played his last card, the Ace of Clubs on the King of Diamonds. 

"But perhaps we are both hypocrites." 

And so saying, he stood and walked away. 


End file.
